If the pkla files in /etc actually ever worked, then it makes sense. As of today the only way to get hassle free mounting with polkit is to edit the *.policy files in /usr._________________emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using e17 | e18, e19, and kde4 sucks :-/

If the pkla files in /etc actually ever worked, then it makes sense. As of today the only way to get hassle free mounting with polkit is to edit the *.policy files in /usr.

Then you have screwed up configuration. Most often it happens exactly because you have edited the /usr files by hand, modifying their mtime, causing Portage to leave dead files around on upgrades.
As in, you never had needed to edit anything in /usr as /etc will always take predecense as described in the manpage.
Futhermore you don't even need .pkla files for mounting removable devices etc. as UDisks1 or 2 will be satisfied by the 'active = TRUE' status returned by ConsoleKit.
.pkla files were only required if you wanted to mount internal disks, like another HDD with NTFS filesystem on it, as in, non-removable drives.
If I were you, I'd start by wiping anything dbus, or *kit related from /usr and /etc and re-emerging them with the --noconfmem parameter. As in, starting from scratch.

Thanks to the upstream (and Gentoo) out-of-box configuration we have on these, the default configs are usually all you need... if using the desktop profile, if not, then you are on your own for figuring out the required USE flags.

Thanks to the upstream (and Gentoo) out-of-box configuration we have on these, the default configs are usually all you need... if using the desktop profile, if not, then you are on your own for figuring out the required USE flags.

I do understand the need of big companies for polkit. What I don't understand is why, when it is nothing into the kernel that depend on it, every desktop user is forced to have it. I don't use gentoo because it provide gnome or kde by default, but because it is fast, stable, easier to manage after the first installation than any other distribution, that because it is no added glue between the real config files and the user, and last but not least, gentoo provide a great level of choices.

Also, it is 3 desktop profiles, desktop, desktop-gnome and desktop-kde. Gnome depend on polkit, but even with kde, polkit is not mandatory. So, why was policykit, as well than consolekit, added in desktop, when it is 2 other profiles, dektop-gnome and desktop-kde where they could have been added?_________________[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading that text: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Also, it is 3 desktop profiles, desktop, desktop-gnome and desktop-kde. Gnome depend on polkit, but even with kde, polkit is not mandatory. So, why was policykit, as well than consolekit, added in desktop, when it is 2 other profiles, dektop-gnome and desktop-kde where they could have been added?

Because the plain 'desktop' profile is designed for Xfce, LXDE, ROX and so forth and we want all the authorization and hardware related features enabled by default too.

Because the plain 'desktop' profile is designed for Xfce, LXDE, ROX and so forth and we want all the authorization and hardware related features enabled by default too.

I understand that. But facts are 1) Those authorization and hardware related features was working before polkit for most of us, and 2) All the wm/de they was not polkit dependent was even not starting any more, with something so simple than startx. That was a severe regression!

To solve 2), the only solution was to modify .xinitrc in order to run *kit at the same time than the non-*kit wm. That imply one single fact: it is a design fault, and I am not talking about the implementation of JS in polkit, but about the fact than, with the default desktop profile, My wm don't need *kit become It must have them. Gratefully, I find my way out of this mess and succeeded to remove polkit.

Btw: rox don't need polkit.

So, beside to include gcc into udev, what will be next? systemd? _________________[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading that text: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Or, is *kit really needed in order to mount stuff? Answer no for most of us.

s/most/all/
See e.g. sys-apps/uam.

It is doing a great job with pmount. Even better with pmount-gui, that is not yet in portage._________________[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading that text: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I installed uam, pmount and pmount-gui. uam mount all the non fstab stuff into /media automatically. You can umount them with "pmount-gui -u". That will show you a simple gui with the mount points that can be umounted. If like me you have usb stuffs in fstab with mount points not in /media, uam will mount them at the right location, but pmount will not be able to unmount them.

EDIT: In fact, that is not pmount that doesn't work with my firewire disk, but pmount-gui. It look like pmount-gui work only with usb stuffs._________________[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading that text: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I done a bug report for pmount-gui with 2 ebuilds and a small tarball._________________[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading that text: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

EDIT: In fact, that is not pmount that doesn't work with my firewire disk, but pmount-gui. It look like pmount-gui work only with usb stuffs.

I signalled this to the author, and he have just committed a fix. Now, both usb and firewire devices are working. _________________[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading that text: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]